The invention refers to a watch/clock with a dial consisting of an analog 12-hour display that ambiguously represents a 24-hour day using an hour and minute hand and an additional display that serves to specify the time shown by the hour and minute hands, displaying two distinguishable symbols that are visible separately from one another in the additional display and which alternate at intervals of roughly 12 hours.
In order to present the problem associated with the analog dials described above, namely an ambiguous display of the time, known watch/clocks are to be described using FIGS. 1 to 5. FIG. 1a shows in the middle the ambiguous half-day dial showing 6.00 or 18.00. Anyone who can read this normal dial is accustomed to being able to read one of the two possible times from the position of the minute and hour hands. With the analog ambiguous half-day dial, which very frequently also contains digits but mostly only dots and lines, we actually only read angles to know what time it is. Objectively, the time cannot, however, be determined exactly if only the information is used that can be read from the watch/clock. Without knowing whether it is evening or morning, the mere information of the position of the hands in the middle illustration of the watch/clock does not permit an unambiguous statement of the time.
The situation is very different, however, for instance with one of the many analog 24-hour auxiliary dials. To the left and right of the half-day dial in FIG. 1a, the time 6.00 or 18.00 is shown on a very frequently used dial on which 12.00 midnight is at the zenith, 12.00 midday at the place where we otherwise expect 6.00 or 18.00. This example clearly shows how alien this presentation of 6.00 and 18.00 is.
FIG. 1b, Here, too, the ambiguous half-day dial is shown in the middle with a typical angle that clearly and rapidly tells us that it can only be 9.00 or 21.00.
On both sides of this dial is a likewise very frequent alternative of the 24-hour dial, where the zenith shows 12.00 midday and the bottom 12.00 midnight. The inventor of this rarely used dial perhaps felt that we tend to expect the sun at 12.00 midday at the zenith. Nevertheless, the display of the times 9.00 and 12.00 midday is just as confusing and cannot be read without figures.
FIG. 1c shows an analog watch with three analog time displays. At first sight, it could be assumed that all three dials are showing 7.07 or 19.07. Far from it. Only two of them, the main dial and that in the lower half, are the familiar ambiguous half-day dials, while the upper shows local time as 16.07, which can only be identified, however, on close examination.
FIG. 1d is a common 24-hour auxiliary display with an hour hand. This auxiliary display is only used in combination with an ambiguous halfway dial in order to render the latter unambiguous. The hour hand here points to 21.00.
FIG. 1e is a likewise common wristwatch showing three different times. In this case, all three times must be represented in completely different, i.e. difficult to identify, ways. The analog main display on the ambiguous half-day dial points to 8.07 or 20.07 p.m. In a 24-hour auxiliary display, 1, this ambiguity is removed since the hour hand in this display is pointing to around 20.00. In order to be able to perceive this more quickly, since the position of the hand pointing to 20.00 is very alien to us, two additional half-day rings for p.m. and am. are present The a.m. and p.m. zones are, however, completely alien to us Europeans. A 24-hour display, 2, similar to FIG. 1a, is located in the upper part of the main dial. On the right-hand side of the main dial, 3, a second local time is provided in digital representation. In order to represent three different times, four different presentation methods are necessary here. Curiously, only the two digital presentations permit a rapid perception or comparison of the times and the determination of where it is now day or night, but these as a matter of principle cannot be read quickly.
FIGS. 1f and 1g are representations of time with a dial turning to the right, in which the light side shows daytime and the dark side very graphically shows night-time. The fact, however, that the dial turns means that the representation of 8.30 cannot be perceived automatically and at a glance.
FIG. 1h shows a 24-hour circle that turns clockwise once a day as a means of indicating local time, and is used with a revolving lunette or as a fixed point on a wristwatch/clock.
FIG. 1i shows another alternative that represents daytime or night time using a propeller-like hour hand. This blade turns once on its axis every 24 hours, the light hand showing daytime and the dark hand night-time on a half-day scale.
FIG. 1k is a halfway display similar to FIG. 1i, in which an hour hand with two pointers turns. On the one side N stands for night-time on the other side D stands for day.
FIG. 1l is a time representation with two half-day rings. On the outer ring, the day hours from 6.00 to 18.00 are written, while the inner ring bears the night times from 18.00 to 6.00 in the morning. A 24-hour hand with on the one side a moon and on the other side a sun shows which hour of the day or night it is.
FIG. 2a shows a display as used for heating systems. The sun and the moon are both represented on dark fields. It is not possible to distingush rapidly which is daytime and which is night-time.
FIG. 2b shows an alternative of the 24-hour auxiliary display shown in FIG. 1d. This hour display is alien to us, but is somewhat more easily perceived by virtue of the fact that night-time from 18.00 to 6.00 in the morning is shown in dark colour, daytime in light colour.
FIG. 2c shows, however, another 24-hour wrong-angle display that is used, in which strangely night time is shown light while daytime is somewhat darker. Such a display confuses the unfamiliar user.
FIG. 2d shows another 24-hour wrong-angle auxiliary display of a very well known wristwatch/clock. The dark shade shows the p.m. time, the light the a.m. time, with the result that it is no longer possible to conclude what is day or night.
FIG. 2e is an auxiliary display for a wristwatch with dark for a.m. and light for p.m. As in many other watches/clocks, a 24-hour disc turns behind the circular small window to the right. In this representation, it is approximately midnight. The small window goes dark in the first hours of the morning and slowly light from 12.00 midday.
FIG. 2f represents one of 6 local time clocks sold as a unit for various world times. The local time on the ambiguous halfway dial is supplemented here, too, by an a.m.-p.m. auxiliary display (2f1). However, in this display, a.m. is shown light and p.m. dark. Here, too, there is a gradual transition and for this reason the time is not easy to identity.
In a new time management programme, small analog time displays are presented alongside the digital times in order to permit a more rapid perception of the time (see FIG. 2g). In order to counterbalance the ambiguity of our normal dial, the a.m. time is represented with a light coloured clock, the p.m. time with a dark clock. Strangely, from midnight on, the night hours appear light, will the day hours from 12.00 are dark!
FIG. 2h: in the battle for customers, the simple and clear representation of shop-opening hours plays a major role. This is a successful attempt to eliminate all uncertainties from the ambiguous half-day dial. This type of representation has the advantage over all the others that it can be perceived very quickly.
FIG. 2i merely presents an overview of the positions at which auxiliary windows are usually located on the dial: 1 is the auxiliary window discussed under FIG. 2e. In this case, the change is from top to bottom. 2 shows the day/night auxiliary window of a 24-hour alarm clock. The change from day to night is gradual, and from right to left. 3 is an a.m.-p.m. window of a well known wristwatch, shown under 2m. 4 is a day/night window of a wristwatch where the transition from one period of time to the other likewise takes place vertically but from left to right. The uncertainty that this window creates in the transitional time depends on its size. However, in no case is the display unambiguous, since the change takes place gradually and very slowly without any movement being perceptible towards light or dark, thus making the time specification ambiguous.
FIG. 2k represents a wristwatch/clock with two day/night auxiliary windows 1 and 2. The first auxiliary window explains the main display. The second auxiliary window explains a second hour hand 3, which can be used to represent a second time. This second time can be perceived very well, since it is presented in normal 12-hour manner. However, a great disadvantage is the ambiguity over a relatively long period of time, since here, too, the transition from day to night takes place gradually as described under FIG. 2l. 
FIG. 2l shows the change of the day/night window in FIG. 2k. In FIG. 2l, illustrations 1 to 3 show darkening from bottom left upwards, whilst illustrations 4, 5 and 6 show darkening by means of a rightward movement from bottom right upwards.
FIG. 2m: illustrations 1 to 6 show the change of the day and night window in the case of a wristwatch in a window mentioned under 2i3. The 2-time zone is shown on this watch with a white hand on a 24-hour scale on the edge of the dial. The change in the day/night window first takes place with a dot that comes into the window from bottom right and thenxe2x80x94see FIGS. 2m2 and 2m3xe2x80x94is followed by an area which turns clockwise until the window is completely dark after about 4 hours.
FIG. 3a shows the sun and moon disc of a watch where the main dial has a larger window at the 12.00 position. The background is not, as in the drawing, light, but instead the sun and the moon and their rays and stars stand against a blue sky, making the transition from day to night difficult to seexe2x80x94and unuambigiity is only the case when the sun or the moon is fill. With this day/night display, neither the symbols nor the colours show the exact point of change.
FIG. 3b shows the dial of a watch with the half-day main dial supplemented by a 24-hour display, which unlike all other 24-hour displays shows midnight, 24.00, to the left (at 9.00), 6.00 in the morning at the top (at 12.00) etc. In this way, night-time is shown in the left half of the additional display, daytime in the night half In addition the word xe2x80x9cNightxe2x80x9d is on the left and xe2x80x9cDayxe2x80x9d is on the right, so that the global traveller never confuses day and night.
3c shows a wristwatch with an analog half-day local time display (3c1) and an original 24-hour additional display (FIG. 3c2). Both displays overlap, with the result that the fact that they belong together is unambiguous, and readability is also relatively good. FIG. 3d is practically a further development of FIG. 3c. The analog local time (3d1) with half-day dial is supplemented by a day/night window (FIG. 3d2) through which part of a rotating 24-hour disc underneath can be seen (see FIG. 3e).
FIG. 3e shows the change of the window of FIG. 3d2. Although the fact that the window belongs to the half-day dial is very well solved, and also that the display is very good at fill day or full night, the area of doubt in the transitional period from light to dark or dark to light applies for a very long time and is thus unsuitable for a general, unambiguous and doubt-free 24-hour display.
FIG. 3f shows a 24-hour display on which the right time of the day can be read at every second since the change from one half-day to the other is not gradual, as with all the other systems, but takes place precisely to the second. This is German patent xe2x80x9cWatch/clock with dynamic target time representationxe2x80x9d (P 42 26 448).
FIG. 3f1 shows an analog watch/clock with the date in the upper half and an appointment trailer watch/clock in the lower half In FIG. 3f2, the appointment trailer watch/clock reveals another characteristic, a ring, which may also be in colour. This ring means that the time represented is in the second half of the day. In this way it would show unambiguously that the time in FIG. 3f1 is in the morning, while the time in FIG. 3f2 refers to the evening. The ring, which turns around the watch/clock, is achieved by means of a mechanical device as shown in FIGS. 3f3 and 3f4. Although, compared with other systems, this represents by far the best solution, it is entirely unsuitable for a generally understandable representation of an unambiguous natural 24-hour analog watch/clock. Only the expert knows whether the watch/clock with a dark edge represents a.m. or p.m. time or possibly daytime or night-time (6.00 in the morning to 18.00 in the evening or 18.00 to 6.00).
To this must be added the fact that this ring restricts the design in substantial aspects, for dark-edged analog dials are a popular artistic element for wristwatch/clockes and clocks.
This attempt to solve the problem and represent an unambiguous generally understandable and immediately perceptible time or local time must also be regarded as unsuccessful.
In summary, it can be stated that the decades of attempts by many renowned world companies and individuals have to date not succeeded in developing simple analog time displays in conjunction with date for the representation of appointment times or to represent local times, e.g. in connection with towns, for which there is huge demand as a result of globalisation.
All previous attempts, either by using the 24-hour dial or the auxiliary displays, do not provide an even approximately satisfactory solution, Neither the colour nor the light or dark fields nor the movements of direction, whether from left to right top to bottom, show any logical relationship with time. To this must be added the fact that, with the exception of the last example (FIG. 3f), the transition from one half of the day to another is always represented gradually, with a static effect such that no movement can be perceived, such that the time display cannot be accurately perceived, often for many hours. Thus the day or night symbols and even illustrations of the moon or the sun have to date not achieved a solution to the problem.
However, using the means of distinction only unsatisfactorily solved above to determine whether it is day or night, it is nevertheless possible to suggest a possibility of entering date-specified appointments as target times in the watch/clock.
If one wishes to set more distant times on analog clocks or watches, for instance 5 or 20 hours away from the current time, this is a problem with the current systems, since they either move very slowly or in a very confused mower towards such a time.
There are fundamentally two systems. In the first, the hands of the analog dial move towards the target minute by minute and hour by hour, show this time or, once the time has been reached, return to the present time. With usual watches, this process lasts between 15 and 30 seconds. This does not permit the rapid display of a time, and in addition, the real time within a full 24-hour day can only be represented with the assistance of a second 24-hour auxiliary display or the like.
A more rapid method, which is being used more and more, is to move the minute and hour hands separately bringing each of them to show the target time in the shortest way. It is easy to conceive how confusing this is, for often the hands turn backwards when a time is displayed that is before the present. Nor is it possible to follow this process mentally, since the movements of the hands are completely independent of the distance of the target time to be aimed at. A means to solve these problems and in order to represent large time leaps to known important starting times such as the beginning of the afternoon, evening, the beginning of the next day, the next week or the next month, will be shown here in conjunction with the new natural 24-hour dial.
The invention is based on the problem of creating a new 24-hour dial that permits an unambiguous presentation of the time over the entire day on the basis of our present ambiguous half-day dial, in such a way that it can be perceived unambiguously and rapidly by anyone around the globe, by young and old in any culture. This new dial is intended to permit the representation not only of world times in connection with towns such as at airports, stock exchanges, banks, travel agencies, reception halls, clocks and watches, but also permit both the representation of appointment times in connection with date and the general presentation of time during the entire day for shop-opening hours, representations of computer time or television stations. This dial is designed in such a way that it can also be combined in a variety of way, e.g. appointment times with world times, expiry times, etc.,xe2x80x94times that can all be represented with the same dial and hence can be rapidly compared with one another. In addition, the clock should permit the user to set target times in the future easily and visually straightforwardly using the unambiguous distinction between day and night.
The problem underlying the invention is set out in claims 1 and 13. The features forming the advantages of the invented idea are the subject matter of the dependent claims.
The invention concerns a watch/clock with a dial with an analog 12-hour display that represents a 24-hour day ambiguously using an hour and a minute hand, an additional display that serves to specify the clock time shown using the hour and minute hands, and which includes two distinguishable symbols that are visible separately from one another in the additional display and which alternate at intervals of roughly 12 hours. formed in such a way tat the two distinguishable symbols are in the form of symbols for day and for night respectively such that they can be interpreted by anyone unambiguously and such that the change from the night symbol to the day symbol at 6 o""clock in the morning or from the day symbol to the night symbol at 6 o""clock in the evening is either sudden and precise to the second, or takes place over a period of time that can be experienced dynamically such that there is unambiguity at all times with respect to the time shown. Such periods of time that can be experienced are usually of a few seconds in duration, at most 1 minute.
Consequently, a watch/clock according to the invention shows ideally the following features:
the time display has the same hands and the same numbered hour dial as today""s half-day display.
Two half-days are displayed, but not 12 a.m. hours and 12 p.m. hours, but instead the natural day and night times from 6.00 in the morning to 18.00 in the evening and from 18.00 in the evening to 6.00 in the morning.
The typical symbols of sun and moon are used for day and night.
To distinguish day, a light surface with the sun and a dark surface with the moon are used. Thus day and night are immediately apparent in two ways and for everyone, whereby the colouringxe2x80x94even if the symbol is not unambiguously identified from a distancexe2x80x94, the dark or light area, has a considerable effect from a distance.
Time accuracy throughout the enter 24 hours is ensured by the fact that the symbols for day or night switch to the second, i.e. the beginning of the day is represented at 6.00 in the morning by a movement of the sun. While the beginning of the night at 18.00 by a movement of the moon.
The day or night symbol is mounted at a conspicuous position on the dial, with the result that it is possible to read the presentation of the time practically without restrictions, and in addition a wide range of possible combinations with other presentations of time can be made on the same dial.
In addition, according to the invention, the representation and setting of target times that can be entered is carried out by means of typical movements of the hands in such a way that the target time can already be characterised by the typical movement of the handing question. A user can follow the process internally, and when the target time is reached the event is displayed to him precisely via the arrival at the hand position, either through a typical position of the hand, a change of the day/night symbol or a date. In order to be able to input target times, target time keys are provided such as shown in WO 93/03428. At this point, the content of the disclosure of this publication is expressly pointed out and reference made thereto. By activating an input device once or several times, it is possiblexe2x80x94always starting from the present timexe2x80x94to move directly to main times. The idea according to the invention is described here in particular with reference to the illustrations.